SLO burglary suspect’s stop at a pawn shop helped police match his face with a name

Surveillance video from Atascadero Jewelry and Loan on March 10 captured suspect Joseph Hopkins of Costa Mesa allegedly trying to pawn items stolen from a house in San Luis Obispo the day before.
San Luis Obispo Police Department

A Costa Mesa man in jail in Orange County is suspected of stealing about $30,000 worth of goods from a San Luis Obispo home earlier this month, after police in Northern California matched the face in a pawn shop surveillance photo with a suspect they’d arrested on similar charges.

The man, 29-year-old Joseph Hopkins, had posted bail in the Northern California burglary but was already in custody again in Southern California on another charge.

San Luis Obispo investigators tracked him down there, questioned him, and will now forward the case to the San Luis Obispo County District Attorney’s Office, according to a SLO Police Department news release.

Hopkins is suspected of burglarizing a home in the 800 block of Mill Street on March 9.